from various websites about plastic..
"Plastics, and World War II
Bakelite, invented by Dr. Leo Baekeland in the early 1900's, was a revolutionary early plastic material. Before World War II, manufacturers used Bakelite's plastic to made such things as jewelry, machinery casings, radio boxes, or kitchen appliances like bowls and trays using this new and highly colorful material. (Catalin, the company which aquired Bakelite when the patent ran out, is synonyous with Bakelite.)
During WWII, the government needed plastic for many war-related products. Bakelite was tough, could be molded or machined, was electrically nonconducting, and would not burn or melt #8211; perfect for many wartime uses. Hundreds of contractors learned to work with the material. Guthrie Courvoisier, who would found Couroc after the war, was one of these contractors #8211; he helped manufacture certain airplane parts from during the war. No doubt Courvoisier based Couroc products on the knowledge of plastics he had gained during the war. (Unlike earlier Bakelite, which came in several colors, most wartime plastics were black.)
But WWII also saw an explosion of new plastic types, such as lucite, fiberglass, vinyl, and acrylic. The simple Bakelite formula (phenol + formaldehyde) was no doubt finessed in many ways during the war."
The Story of Bakelite
The first completely synthetic man-made substance was discovered in 1907, when Leo Baekeland, a New York chemist, developed a liquid resin that he named Bakelite. Baekeland had developed an apparatus - which he called a Bakelizer - that enabled him to vary heat and pressure precisely so as to control the reaction of volatile chemicals. Using this pot-like apparatus, Baekeland developed a new liquid (bakelite resin) that rapidly hardened and took the shape of its container. Once hardened, the resin would form an exact replica of any vessel that contained it. This new material would not burn, boil, melt, or dissolve in any commonly available acid or solvent. This meant that once it was firmly set, it would never change. This one benefit made it stand out from previous "plastics." While celluloid-based substances could be melted down innumerable times and reformed, Bakelite was the first thermoset plastic which would retain its shape and form under any circumstances.
Bakelite could be added to almost any material - such as softwood - and instantly make it more durable and effective. Numerous products began to be manufactured based on this new material. One of the sectors of society most interested in its development was the military. The US Government saw Bakelite opening the door to production of new weaponry and lightweight war machinery that steel could not match. In fact, Bakelite was a key ingredient in most of the weapons used in the Second World War.
Bakelite was also used for domestic purposes such as electrical insulators. For this purpose it proved to be more effective than any other material available - so effective, in fact, tthat it is still used as such today. Bakelite is electrically resistant, chemically stable, heat-resistant, shatter-proof and neither cracks, fades, creases, nor discolors from exposure to sunlight, dampness or sea salt.
Polyethylene
In 1933, two organic chemists working for the Imperial Chemical Industries Research Laboratory were testing various chemicals under highly pressurized conditions. In their wildest imaginations, the two researchers E.W. Fawcett and R.O. Gibson, had no idea that the revolutionary substance they would come across - polyethylene - would have an enormous impact on the world.
The researchers set off a reaction between ethylene and benzaldehyde, utilizing two thousand atmospheres of internal pressure. The experiment went askew when their testing container sprang a leak and all of the pressure escaped. Upon opening the tube they were surprised to find a white, waxy substance that greatly resembled plastic. When the experiment was carefully repeated and analyzed the scientists discovered that the loss of pressure was only partly due to a leak; the greater reason was the polymerization process that had occurred leaving behind polyethylene. In 1936, Imperial Chemical Industries developed a large-volume compressor that made the production of vast quantities of polyethylene possible. This high-volume production of polyethylene actually led to some history-making events.
For instance, polyethylene played a key supporting role during World War II - first as an underwater cable coating and then as a critical insulating material for such vital military applications as radar insulation. This is because it was so light and thin that it made placing radar onto airplanes possible; something that could not be done using traditional insulating materials because they weighed too much. In fact, the use of polyethylene as an insulating material reduced the weight of radars to 600 pounds in 1940 and even less as the war progressed. It was these lightweight radar systems, capable of being carried onboard planes, that allowed the out-numbered Allied aircraft to detect German bombers under such difficult conditions as nightfall and thunderstorms.
It was not until after the war, though, that the material became a tremendous hit with consumers and from that point on, its rise in popularity has been almost unprecedented. It became the first plastic in the United States to sell more than a billion pounds a year and it is currently the largest volume plastic in the world. Today, polyethylene is used to make such common items as soda bottles, milk jugs and grocery and dry-cleaning bags in addition to plastic food storage containers.
i'm sure this list barely touchs the surface.. ..